FAKA is a cultural movement established by best friends Thato Ramaisa (Fela Gucci) and Buyani Duma (Desire Marea) both from from South Africa. The besties began as a performance art duo, exploring alternative expressions of black queer identity in a characteristic lo-fi, glitchy aesthetic. Through this the pair realised the need for others to express their stories and experiences, and so expanded FAKA into an online platform that voices and promotes young black queer voices in current South Africa’s sociopolitical sphere.
Faka began as an art duo between Fela Gucci and Desire Marea and they just wanted to make art. It’s partially an archival project documenting young black queer creatives who they think, from their experience, do not relish in the exposure and recognition they deserve for being visible as who they believe themselves to be during these times. Faka use performance as a medium to manifest the realities that they desire for the black queer South African.
According to Faka’s they said what they pratice is an exploration of godliness. Godliness being an empathetic, allegorical existence. they have put an emphasis on sexual fluidity and othered masculine identities because they feel that the way they were forced to interact with those concepts taught them a lot about how to interact with other aspects of their identity and the expansion has never stopped.
Faka is a concept coined from ages, it was called Boom Shaka. Bongo Maffin. They existed like that in their times and they were celebrated for the integrity with which they expressed their identity and desires. It’s really just a continuation of that, and maybe the reason why it seems more visible is because of the Internet and Model-C aesthetics.
“There is definitely a lack of visibility and the right representation in terms of how we are often presented in popular media; if it’s not some shit sitcom on SABC1 presenting a caricature of a garish township gay, it’s Model-C misogynoir VUZU promoting conflict between Vintage Cru and Bujy. Our stories are never allowed the platform to be expressed by us, which has been an inspiration behind us opening a Facebook page and Tumblr where we profile young black queer artists to tell their stories. ”
Facebook: bob.marea
Facebook: thato.p.ramaisa
references:
http://10and5.com/2015/06/29/young-south-africa-faka-your-representation-of-black-queer-identity/
